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Saturday, January 5, 2013

How do you actually get success?

There's ten tons of books on success, in both business and self-help sections of the bookstore.

A lot of people define success as financially secure, having a decent income without working too hard, blah blah blah. Other people define success differently. You can even have different types of success in different areas, like personal, family, business, professional, etc.

But how do you actually become successful? How do you ACHIEVE success?

The honest truth is... it's hard work *and* luck.

The problem is most people refuse to accept this two-variable answer. They refuse to accept "luck" as a possible answer to their success. They prefer to believe it is their own hard work.

That can be quite dangerous.

Let's say you have succeeded in whatever it was that you loved. To what do you attribute your success? And let's be honest, skip the "I thank God and my parents..." stuff.

How much of it is due to luck?

You don't know, right?

Warren Buffet, one of the richest people in the World, had said that if he was born to a family in sub-Saharan Africa he'd not be a billionaire today. So merely being born or live in the US of A or one of the more affluent countries is in itself, a bit of luck for you and/or your parents. Isn't it?

While it is foolish to trust mostly / only in luck (that's the gambler's fallacy), it is also foolish to trust ONLY in hard work and completely discount luck. If you discount influence of luck, you'll end up believing that your way was the ONLY way to accomplish what you did when it is likely not true. That leads to overconfidence and narcissism.

People in self-help industry LOVE to tell you about their shortcut to success... if you buy their book, CD, video, lessons, whatever. It's a huge industry, after all. However, they all discount the factor of luck. It's basically "follow my system, and your success is guaranteed, luck not needed!" when it's simply false.

Scammers would also love to tell you that there is no luck. Just give them money and you'll make money. Obviously there is no easy money, but people try scams every day.

Luck is ever present. Ignore it at your own peril.

If you *do* understand the role of luck, then you'll understand that someone who's not quite as (or more) successful as you are, may just be a bit less (or more) luckier than you are, and hopefully you'll be more understanding toward others.

Did you like what you read? Did you feel like you learned something by reading it? Do you think your friends and family members could use the knowledge? If so, please spread the word. Share the article on your favorite social network by using one of the share buttons. Together, we can make people smarter and avoid scams.